ESEC 620 - Dr. Densmore - cohort 7: Resources for Publishing

Cabell's is a directory of scholarly journals:  the database helps authors locate journals that might publish his/her article by providing information about journal submission guidelines, acceptance rates, review process and other pertinent information about journals in areas of business, education, and psychology.

1.    Read a research paper recently that piqued you interest?  Look for the "Recommendations for further research" section for ideas.  
2.    Look for "calls for Papers" announcements on journal publishers' websites

make sure your colleagues can find your article!!...

1.   Is the journal indexed in major library research databases?   If not, no-one will find it or, of course, read it.  Your librarian can help you figure this out.  Usually this information is included on the publisher's website.  You can also ask the editor about this.

2.   Does your library have a subscription to the journal?  This question could be answered by exploring #1; your librarian may tell you that the journal is included in a database the library subscribes to.  If not, however, make sure the library has a print subscription. And check that other major libraries provide access to it as well. You want to publish in a journal that is easily accessible to your colleagues, both locally and globally.

For example, your topic is:

"Vygotsky's techniques in the virtual classroom"

Option A:

1.   Search for your topic in a research database that covers your discipline
      such as ERIC, Education Full Text, or SCOPUS.

2.   Examine the results to see what Journals are publishing on your topic, assess:

         Do these look like research articles?   Opinion pieces?  
         What is the level (complexity) of the articles?  
         Do the articles speak to the same audience as your material?

3.   Let's say you find the following citations relevant in all critical ways:

Maurino, P. (2007). Online asynchronous threaded discussions: Good enough to advance students through the proximal zone of Activity Theory?. Techtrends: Linking Research & Practice To Improve Learning, 51(2), 46-49
         
Liu, X., & Schwen, T. M. (2006). Sociocultural Factors Affecting the Success of an Online MBA Course: A Case Study Viewed from Activity Theory Perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 19(2), 69-92.

Hung, D. (2002). Forging links between “communities of practice” and schools through online learning communities: implications for appropriating and negotiating knowledge. International Journal On E-Learning, 1(2), 23-33.

4.   Now, find the publisher's webpage via Google or another search engine.
      In other words:  Google the title of the journal
      Look for a link that says:  
      Author's guidelines, or  Instructions for Authors, or
      manuscript submissions or manuscript requirements or
      something similar, to learn what you will need to do
      to submit a manuscript

Option B:

Assuming your paper is written already:

1.   review the list of references in your paper, keeping in mind that your research project will be a suitable follow-up to articles you've read and cited.

2.   Proceed to step 4. above.

Examples of Journal Publishers' websites:

The Journal Citation Review publication provides quantitative tools for ranking, evaluating, categorizing, and comparing journals. The impact factor is one of these; it is a measure of the frequency with which the "average article" in a journal has been cited in a particular year or period. The annual JCR impact factor is a ratio between citations and recent citable items published. Thus, the impact factor of a journal is calculated by dividing the number of current year citations to the source items published in that journal during the previous two years

“I wish I would have known how many edits there would be before trying to publish my article!"...

"I wish somebody would have told me, 'relax this is going to take a lot longer than you thought'” before I started writing my article.

"Thank goodness I had access to my librarian colleagues while working on my article! They really helped me."

Sally Bryant, MA, MLS
Pepperdine Librarian

Bryant, S., & Ye, G. (2012). Implementing OCLC's WMS (Web-Scale Management Services) Circulation at Pepperdine University. Journal Of Access Services, 9(1), 1-17. doi:10.1080/15367967.2011.629921